Microblaze Implementation of GPS

Abstract

The accuracy and efficiency of a Global Positioning System (GPS) is a critical parameter especially for surveillance and automation purposes. The design of such a system which can not only provide high accuracy and efficiency but also is easily configurable enhances its applications largely for embedded systems. In this paper, the authors have proposed a design of a GPS implementation using a Microblaze which is a Xilinx based Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) soft core microprocessor that has over seventy user configurable options, optional Memory Management Unit (MMU) and a five-stage pipeline for maximum performance. The proposed design is used to track and route the path travelled by the user on a map and compute the distance. The Microblaze is used to connect and interface various configurable peripherals like USB UART and LEDs to implement a GPS using the AXI interface of an Arty A7-100T FPGA Evaluation Board. A comparison of the proposed design with respect to the performance parameters has been drawn to analyse the merits and specifications of the system.